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The Development of Groot Town Center Would Boost Population Growth for Namibia?

In the first 3 years of opening Groot Town Center, residential housing units at Groot would be more than 15,000 with additional of more than 5,000 apartment units.

And with an average of about 6.5 persons per 3-bedroom house and about 3.5 persons per 2-bedroom apartment, that’s about 97,500 persons per 15,000 homes, and 17,500 persons per 5,000 apartments, see Groot Living, for a gross total of about 115,000 residents of Groot, plus an estimated 55,000 daily visitors to GTC.

This will make Groot the fastest and busiest business and residential area in Namibia. And in 5 years, housing units could go up to 160,000 in the Groot area, and that would make half of the Namibian population to live within the Groot area.

The average income for the Groot residents would be about N$36,000 per month.

And, per NamWater executives, this is a very good business opportunity for NamWater and NamPower in Namibia.

Yes, since the majority of the people would want to go live in the Groot area, due to plenty of better paying job opportunities, then in other parts of Namibia, employers would upgrade their salaries and wages to better match the ones offered by employers at Groot. And because employers at Groot would experience a large influx of labor supply, then they will reduce their salaries and wages; making it more lucrative for the employees who are working in the areas outside Groot.

Thus, as employers outside the Groot area offer more better pay and fringe benefits, then the migration of people would flock back to other parts of Namibia in search of better paying jobs.

And because our Groot Town Center ecosystem is being planned for distribution and placement based on each regional comparative advantage, not all projects would be placed at Groot, then you’d have a well-balanced population distribution.

And as each region compete for the labor force, eventually salaries and wages in Namibia would reach a certain point, an equilibrium. And by that time, the aggregate well-being of the Namibians would be up, almost similar to those in developed countries. Actually, it will go up to about US$25,000.

And we all know that, when that happens, an inflationary pressure follows, but that’s the job for the Bank of Namibia.

The side effect of all of this, is that there would also be a large influx of foreign nationals flocking to Namibia in search of better work. Most of them would be professionals with specialized skills. This would benefit Namibia in terms of skills-and-knowledge transfer, however, there could be an increased of certain diseases and or illness that some foreign nationals could bring them with them.

However, the Namibia’s Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Health and Social Services should and must upgrade their systems of manpower and technology in order to help eliminate some of the possible risks as stated.

It must be clear that Namibia cannot close its border to some of the skilled foreign nationals due to the fact that nearly 80% of Namibia’s workforce is unskilled. Hence the first 5 years of implementing the Groot Town Center ecosystem could initially require the labor force by foreign nationals while Namibians upgrade their skills through various means of training.

But the good will weight out the bad and this is overall good for Namibia.